Author: Ellen Bell

Things do have a habit of working out. They sometimes work themselves out, or others do it, or we do it for ourselves. A problem, a worry always seems worse when it is contained in the head, in the mind unshared. We talked in the sun yesterday afternoon, sitting on a bench in the Vicarage Fields. He always helps me. He doesn’t see things as disastrously as I do. He never does. He is wise, where I wobble. I sit with my legs over his and he strokes my feet as we talk. They are simple pleasures, a simplicity that I crave during this episode of bleakness. I am nervous about today. And yet, I know it will be fine, once I’ve got a handle on the technical stuff of it. I like her work very much, and she comes across so warmly. I am sure that we will get on. And the writing? Will it always scare me? Probably. It’s because you want to do these artists justice, and yourself and the fear of judgement from all sides is ever present. Can you not find some spaces in between the fear to enjoy it a little? Yes, I think so. One day at a time, he says. One day.

900 died yesterday. We will probably have the largest death count of all Europe, he said yesterday. I was shocked. I have this notion of us being forward, up in front with the wherewithal to cure. Clearly this is not so. I am sorry. I am sorry for all of your losses. So far I have not been impacted with such grief. It may come. The odds are high that it will.

And still the sun promises to shine. So much pleasure and so much pain. Can we ever contain it all?

I’ve talked about it before, the radio and how it plays into my mind. A snatched phrase, a word that resonates. The other day it was from a short story. An Irish story. A short, they called it. The story was about a daughter meeting up with her mother after she’d run away and left her with her grandparents. You hear the train of the girl’s thoughts. ‘You’re both stuck in the year she left’, says the narrator. And then yesterday, one of the composers on Radio 3 having the same surname as the maker I am to interview tomorrow. An unusual name, Dutch.

The sky is milky with wispy clouds. A few more people were about as I walked this morning. It is warmer, possibly that is why.

Take each day at a time, he tells me. One at a time. I watch my breathing, sometimes I am holding my breath and I don’t know that I am doing it.

The fullness of the moon disturbs my sleep bringing both ridiculous yet disturbing dreams. One of the ones from last night involved me seeing a doctor (who happened to be the red-haired bloke who played the dentist who had a thing with Trixie in Call the Midwife) who told me I had this condition and he spouted out a long latin name which required him to pump my ‘downstairs’ with water. I baulked at his use of the word even in my sleep (he laughed when I told him about it this morning) – and then when the consultation concluded he abruptly turned round, ignoring me completely and began chatting up the nurses.

We were sitting by the edge of the ‘Col Field’ as he calls it, in the sun, flouting the rules in the name of Vitamin D when I saw her. Isn’t that T? I said, from the cafe? He wasn’t sure until she came closer. I’ve always liked her. There is something steady about her. And she has a style, yesterday she was sporting some particularly flamboyant slacks. She doesn’t know my name but manages to fudge it. She been out getting food for her cat, she told us. What’s your cat’s name? he asked her. Patrick, she said. It helped. It helped her obvious stress at having to close their business, and the losses that this has incurred. It helped to distract her. She turned her attention to recounting how Patrick was faring during this strangeness. He used to go out when we were at work, she said, now he’s in all the time. Poor love. She has savings. We’ve worked hard for them, she says, it seems unfair to use them. I know. I know.

Bless you, bless you all. Will he die?

I know these things aren’t personal, how can they be? These fraudsters don’t know me, they just take a chance. And the amount was small, relatively, just a monthly drip drip that I was sure to overlook and I did for a couple of months. It churned me up when I did realise what had happened. First you feel so foolish then you feel abused, invaded. And it took so long to get through to speak to someone. Initially there is that slow, sterile on-line chat to deal followed by the endless wait on the phone. In the end a warm voice answered, a warm kindly voice and all has been taken care of, but I do feel silly, and a little ticked-off by myself and that imaginary panel of judges sitting on my shoulder for not noticing it sooner. Was that their intention, that I wouldn’t miss it? Well that’s them stymied now. Anyway all that meant that I didn’t have the peaceful day I’d intended. Isn’t that part of the frustration, that things come in unbidden, unexpected and shake up one’s plans? Does that mean we shouldn’t make plans? Is it better to be unprepared for the day, open to anything? And yet, structure, however impermanent holds us in place, helps us to believe in an order, that there is a sense to this chaos. And the worst thing is we rowed. We rarely shout at each other like that. It was horrible, short but horrible. It makes me weep, I need his goodness, and his belief in mine to function. All was settled soon, but the residue, that trace of rancour remains.

Another beautiful day is promised, though the wind, they say will pick up. I shall so sew today while I can before the next tranche of work comes in. I thought about work as I lay in bed waiting for sleep trying to find a peaceful place with it. And it came in that thought, that sense that when I am working, writing in particular, there is pleasure in ‘sitting with it’, even before the blank page has been resolved, of giving myself to it. And that was enough to calm me. The same can be applied to art work and even to my BBC work. It’s about yielding to it, succumbing and seeing what comes. For it always does. Always.

I think about her. I talk to her, in my head. Was she, is she wiser than me? I remember her reticence. The world was a frightening but also a wondrous place for her, as it is for me. Little has changed. For her the day to day was about managing her fears, as it is for me. They come in, unbidden, or so it seems though I know my mind brings them, hurls them into my thinking space. What are the fears of? Not being good enough, generally, or not meeting a deadline, or not finding any inspiration, of being emptied of all thought, original or not. And of displeasing others. That was a big one for her. I remember that. Mostly displeasing her. That was a frightening thing, at times a violent thing. But what of her joys, her pleasures? They were usually in the small things. Her things. Her room. Her bedroom, particularly the one at the farm with its split level, its little window onto the garden. How glorious it was to sleep alone after so many years of sharing with her sister. Her own space. Her posters, her music, her things. What were they, those things? Gimcrack stuff mostly. A musical jewellery box with the ubiquitous ballerina, an old teddy, a collection of her Dad’s old 45 singles, and her own, including Donny Osmond’s Puppy Love and his and Marie Osmond’s version of Paper Roses and her books – fairy tales books, exquisitely illustrated, Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven and Famous Five novels, and various Anna Sewell stories. She took care of her things. She still does. They were lovingly possessed, owned and treasured. It was her quiet space, her safe space, mostly. Was she wiser than me? I think she accepted things as they were better than I do. After all she had no false sense of power or agency. Things were done to her that were beyond her control. Her only power was in acquiescing, quietly, silently and staying out of the firing line, not putting up resistance. Resistance met violence, or at least had the potential to attract it. Oh, it wasn’t so bad. She wasn’t so bad. She was doing battle with her own particular demons, but the child, she was scared of the threat of violence. She was a quiet soul, a peaceful one, then. Can she be so now?

It promises to be a beautiful day.

I was thwarted in my intention to begin to put together his quilt. The material the woman had cut for us in the material shop wasn’t big enough. So I made flapjacks instead, read and did a meditation which is guaranteed to make me tenser as I always feel I do don’t manage to reap its benefits as I should. Heigh ho. I tried it. And the quilt must wait.

A quiet day.

Now for some tea.

Sometimes I don’t have much to say. And that is OK. This can be a quiet, empty space too. I sewed my alphabet yesterday and listened to fiction, one of which was a play based on the real life account of a young Scottish girl’s murder trial in 1857 where she was accused of poisoning her French lover with arsenic. It was marvellously, and shockingly, played (mostly for her ambiguous naivety) by Clare Grogan (was she in Gregory’s Girl or was she the one who sang Happy Birthday or both?).

We walked through The Avenue yesterday. It was nice to stroll with him. I love to hear him chatter about his past. It is everywhere, particularly in the sports grounds. A particular gate, a hill, a turning all set off sparks of memory in him. I don’t have this about anywhere, at least not as deep-rooted as he does.

I am sleeping longer but still I am tired. All this thinking, all this trying to understand how to be peaceful, acquiescent, accepting of my lot, this lot. Which after all, isn’t so bad. She has been in touch with offers of work. I am glad though I twitch with nerves about doing it well enough. She wouldn’t ask you if she didn’t like what you do, he says. No, she wouldn’t. She is rigorous and not afraid to say it like it is. Let is be so, be grateful, it is work and work that I am proud of, happy to do (when it goes well) and derive joy from. Thank you. I never forget, you know, how fortunate I am. I am stuck a little, in a habit of being blue. Let the sun shine in, lighten me. Lighten me up. Please.

He remained on the tree outside my bedroom window for quite a few minutes, hopping from one branch to another. An ex-colleague told me that seeing one is a portent of something coming, be it good or bad, but something pivotal, important, significant. I didn’t tell him. He is not a superstitious man but in these wobbly times he could take it the wrong way. And he is unsettled enough, though trying to remain sanguine, as he was last night after waiting over half an hour to register with Morrisons (not his first choice but Tesco is full) delivery service only to be bounced back when his turn came up. We are all having to adapt in big and small ways to this strange time. It is surreal, sometimes almost dream-like so that when they mention it on the radio, referring to listener’s requests and emails, I do a double-take, so it’s happening to them too, is it?

I finished the second sampler and am a little bereft. Working it kept her close. And then I had a brainwave. And what joy it gave me when the idea came in and settled inside of me. I shall make one for her too. And then one for her and for her. All my loves. And I shall design them myself. New projects do give me a lift. They represent possibilities, to learn, to work and to develop and they distract me from this ennui, this malaise that still resides deep within.

We lay on his bed yesterday afternoon and talked about the sound project. It helps to test it in the air, to say it out loud. I put my hand on his arm, encouraging him to keep quiet as I talk. The ideas are raw, they need to nurtured, fed not cut down before they shoot. I need his responses, he is an excellent sounding-board and I trust him, but sometimes it is not the time. It needs to percolate, it can’t be rushed. I feel better when I let the concept take hold, flood my mind, like it is beginning to do. I want to work alone, to find my feet with it. It is much more about a soundscape – an audio snapshot of three art spaces – the extraneous sounds of a gathering place, caught randomly and played back in that space, its own vital hum. I want to capture the sound of feet on lino, the clatter of crockery from the cafe next door, doors opening and shutting, telephones ringing. Will it be time specific, date specific, what are the lifeblood sounds of the space? I want to keep it small, intimate, un-showy. Will you help me make it happen?

I caught the end bit of a programme on Rimbaud, on the back of one about Jim Morrison. Arthur Rimbaud was a walker, apparently. He would walk himself into a state of exhaustion, believing it helped his mind unloosen its creativity. And yesterday I listened to the third and fourth of Katie Hims’ radio play series Listening to the Dead. What a gem, she is. What a find. See there is pleasure in the small things, when the large is beyond one’s control. And I baked shortbread for him. I promised and I did it. And it was OK. They came out OK.

Thank you.

I dream of food all the time. I am usually with other people in a restaurant and I’m having to negotiate what it is that I can eat. It’s as stressful in my dreams as it is in real life. All that loss of control, of handing over my plate to another to fill with I know not what. The other night I had to ask if they had any plant-based milks and in another I was served up a piece of fish with spinach, at least it isn’t meat, I thought. It is often about choices, but mostly about the discomfort of having to make my desires known, understood and satisfied. Mostly, in my dream world that is, they are not.

I forgot to say that he died. The man on the hill, that is. The man, the architect whom I met once at work when he came in to do an interview, who lived in that modernist house on the hill. He died a week or so ago. Not from the virus but from Parkinson’s, I believe. He had a lot of grace. A real gentleman. Another such gentleman also died, the day before yesterday. He came home after his walk with the news. He was a doctor and he lived just down the road from us. He knew him, professionally I think. A quiet man, a modest man with a passion for cars. He had about six or was it seven? All with Ceredigion number plates. How does he get to drive them all? he said on several occasions. He loved his garden too. A neat and tidy bodger one, with rose bushes in the front. He died in the night with his wife lying next to him, he was told as he queued for the paper. They’d moved him downstairs when his illness took hold. It was the same with my father, a precaution against falling. He too died of a brain tumour. At least he could be at home, with his family, his loves, and close to his garden. Can we take some consolation from that? Will you go to the funeral? I asked him at breakfast. No, he said, you’re only allowed 10 people at funerals at the moment. Of course, I’d forgotten. The townspeople will be disappointed, they all turn up usually, in their black suits and black ties. Rest in peace you gentle souls. Rest in peace.

It was hard talking to him about it yesterday. And we didn’t do The Avenue, it rained. We lay on his bed instead. I wept. It’s the uncertainty, the not-knowing that gets to me. So just let it be so, he said. Let it stay, and wait. And this morning I do feel a little better. Fieldwork was the word that came into my head. Fieldwork. I want to tape the chatter myself, perhaps using one of those old fashioned reel-to-reel machines. Be overt about it. It’s anthropology, he said. Make the performance the recording of it. And then, don’t edit it but just let it play, all of it. And make it something I do collaboratively with three galleries not just one. I’m capturing the extraneous sounds of gallery life. People talking. It gives me hope, all is not lost. Just take each moment as it comes, one at a time, no great leaps. Let it happen. Like breath.

Granted I was walking down the middle of the road, but it was half past three in the morning and the town, courtesy of Covid-19 was deserted. And when I saw the headlights of car flood the tarmac yellow I did step promptly onto the pavement. Nevertheless, the car slowed down and pulled up beside me. I knew even before I turned round that it was a police car. The passenger side window was let down. It’s probably best if you walk on the pavement rather than the road, he said, smiling at me. Of course, I said, after I’d stripped off my various hoods and headphones so that I could hear him. He had a nice face, open, fair and amiable. But, I continued, there was no one about.

Do you think it is a little over-zealous? I said as I told him about it when I went in to wake him up. Yes, he said, but I suppose that they’ve little else to do. Why does it irritate me so much? Is it that I feel like a child being ticked off, or is it more that my sense of personal liberty is under threat. I want to be free to do as I will. Not, of course if it harms anyone but I wasn’t harming anyone. The road was clear. And I love to walk in the road. There is space to stretch out, to break the rules.

She would never have broken rules. She was a good girl. I suspect that I no longer am.

I slept an hour longer. He was delighted when I told him my plan. I think I should try and get eight hours, I said. I’m so pleased, he said. And I did it. But it has left me discombobulated. I am in my studio an hour later, everything has got shifted forward. And, as yet, I am not feeling more rested. Give it time, he said, give it time.

We are to have a seminar today, walking in the The Avenue (he wants to show me the primroses). That’s what we call it. One of those sessions when we talk about what I am to do. He helps me straighten myself out, to put things in order. I am all at sea. Wobbled. Just focus on today. I’ve got the sampler to finish and perhaps start some baking and my accounts for March (not there is much to do there) to do – no money coming in and not much going out, thankfully.

I don’t know what I want anymore. Help. Did I ever? I search my vision of the past in mind. What was I then and what am I now? Ria Parkinson threatens to incarnate inside of me. All that soul-searching of hers bores him, and me a little bit, if I am honest, though I recognise it. She is bored, she is unspent, unused up, listless and lost. Just what is her role? What is she to do? Ditto, eh? What exactly am I for? Is that the point that I am nothing, for nothing, just nothing, no thing. Just be, he says, just be. But how? How do I do that?

Brian Cox during his interview last weekend with Lauren Laverne on Desert Island Discs, exhorted us to nurture the child within. And he didn’t mean some psychoanalytical notion of a child, but as we once were. It’s who we are really are, he said. Yes. I agree, Brian. It is. It still is after all these years. My child is about five or six, and very earnest. Sensitive, quick to cry but also quick to feel joy. An optimist yet a worrier, life is full of pleasure for her but also pain. She senses things deeply. She has a huge amount of empathy for others, she seeks out the vulnerable, the weak, the abandoned ones. Lame ducks, her mother used to call them. They were the ones she brought home for tea, the ones she keened towards at parties. Those shy, reticent ones. Her mother couldn’t understand why. I carry her with me as I walk. Sometimes I take her hand. I like her. I always have. She had lovely skin and a sweet dimples on her face when she smiled. She had so much potential to shine. She worked hard at everything. She was careful, diligent. Quiet. Are you disappointed in me? I asked her yesterday, as I walked. No, she said. You have done the best you could, always. Is that enough? Of course, she said, with a smile steeped in a wisdom beyond her years.

I felt better walking this morning, my legs weren’t so stiff. And I was less edgy about being stopped. I saw more people out and about. A dog-walker, a couple. All were far off. No one disturbed me. One of the windows of a house on a terrace of dwellings in one of the streets that lead onto the harbour had been covered in a child’s drawings. They were taped onto the window, painting side out. They were glorious. They were of blue skies and rainbows. A happiness of painting. Shared with us. Thank you.